Treat Petite February Round-up - Like 'em, Love 'em, Gotta Have 'em!

In the beginning of the month I asked you to share with me the things you like, love, and gotta have for the blogging challenge Treat Petite! I was covering for Cakeyboi this month as he took a bit of a break while he moved house and stuff!

Everyone linked up some great petite treats! Starting with these great pink peppercorn shortbread hearts and healthy carrot cake muffins from Tales from the Kitchen Shed.

Tales from the Kitchen Shed

Pink Peppercorn Shortbread Hearts

Tales from the Kitchen Shed

Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins

Pancake day might be over, but pancakes are for life not just one day. So, I suggest you try these! 

Gluten Free Alchemist

Banana Buttermilk Pancakes with Caramelised Banana Sauce

Only Crumbs Remain

Valentine's Day Brownies

Chocolate is one of those things that I like, love, and just gotta have! You could go super indulgent with Only Crumbs Remain's Valentine's Day Brownies stuffed with Rolo's or with Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary 3 ingredients fudgsicle; still indulgent, but only 200 calories!

Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

3 Ingredient 100 Calorie Chocolate Fudgsicle

Still looking for more treats? You can't go wrong with these strawberry cupcakes topped with nutella buttercream. Nutella Buttercream!! I don't think I need to say any more - just follow the link below! 

The Baking Explorer

Strawberry Cupcakes with Nutella Buttercream

Family Friends Food

Sahib - hot drink

Sahib is a hot drink creamy drink that used to be used as an aphrodisiac and definitely worth a look! But not before you check out these amazing apple rose's from Only Crumbs Remain, check out how they were made by following the link below! 

Only Crumbs Remain

A Dozen Apple Roses

Sesame seeds are a super food or super seed? Anyway added to these super sweet Halva Biscuits it probably doesn't matter much! I would like to try these out one day!

Tin & Thyme

Halva Biscuits

How to Cook Good Food

Valentine Mont Blanc Profiteroles

Choux pastry is something I have yet to try and these Mont Blanc ones by How to Cook Good Food are first on my list! Who ever thought you could or should make ice cream into truffles!?! Caroline Makes did and I'm glad she shared them with us this month! 

Caroline Makes

Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream Truffles

Foodie Quine

Tunnack's Teacake Rocky Road

Tunnack's. Teacake. Rocky. Road. There are no other words. 

Cooking for Kishore

Strawberry Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread is one of these bakes that is a great base for any flavours and strawberry is as good as any! Marmite is one of those things that you either like or don't, but Allotment Kitchen assures us that even the biggest marmite haters will love this... 

A Seasonal Veg Table: Allotment Kitchen

Chocolate Marmite Caramel Fudge

The more than Occasional Baker

3 Ingredient Nutella Brownies

Brownies and peanut butter cookies are two of my favourite thing! With only 3 ingredients these Nutella brownies are perfect for those days that you need a chocolate fix and not much in your cupboard! The peanut cookies are also perfect for those days and they are gluten free!! 

The Gluten Free Alchemist

Miss GF Makes Peanut Butter Cookies (gluten free)

These Double Chocolate Muesli Cookies look amazing! I can't wait to try them super easy, chocolatey and full of healthy muesli! 

Family Friends Food

Easy Double Chocolate Muesli Cookies

Belleau Kitchen

olive oil lemon and ground almond traybake - gluten and dairy free

Last but not least the olive oil lemon and ground almond traybake from Belleau Kitchen! Also gluten and dairy free - you can tell that the world of baking is changing lots of new and tasty things made for so everyone can enjoy them! 

Just a quick thank you for linking up this month! I believe Kat - The Baking Explorer will be hosting again next month and that we will possibly see Stuart - Cakeyboi the following month! Thank you to you both for letting me guest host it was a lot of fun! I hope to do it again sometime!

Treat Petite February

This isn't Cakeyboi or The Baking Explorer, but it is Treat Petite! I'm super excited to be guest hosting this month as Cakeyboi settles into his new accommodation. 

If you are new to this blogging challenge it's pretty straight forward - any sweet treat that is little or petite. So, no cakes or pies and such - only little things like cupcakes, truffles, macarons, cookies, cake pops and so on! If you have any questions regarding this ask any of us and for inspiration check out last month's round up over on The Baking Explorer! 

The theme is: Like It, Love It, Gotta Have It. 

Basically something that you like, love, and just have to have! For example: I like peanut butter, I love peanut butter cups, and I just gotta have one! (I just gave myself a brilliant idea!) Basically anything that you like or love or gotta have! 

Here are the rules/requirements to enter:

• Add your petite treat to the Linky at the bottom of this post by the 25th of the month, midnight at the latest.
• Post your bake onto your blog and link back to Cakeyboi and The Baking Explorer, and me United Cakedom just for this month, stating who is hosting this month.
• Follow Cakeyboi and The Baking Explorer blogs on Google + (see sidebar links), if you haven’t already.
• If you tweet use  #treatpetite and mention @MrCakeyboi and @BakingExplorer and me too! @unitedcakedom – we will retweet 
• Add the new challenge logo to the post and ‘Treat Petite’ as a label to the post
• Use any recipe as long as the source is noted
• If you like, add your photo to the ‘Treat Petite’ Pinterest board (request access from me – Cakeyboi)
• Feel free to enter old posts as long as you update the post and meet all the requirements above!
• If you have any questions at all, please email Cakeyboi or The Baking Explorer.

Link-Up closed

An InLinkz Link-up

Pistachio & Cardamom Madeleines (inspired by The Hundred Foot Journey)

It’s funny how in life just one journey, wether it’s 100 foot or 23,321,760 foot, can change your life forever. The first step is what really matters though. Without the first step the journey cannot begin. Do you have a moment ingrained in your memory as the start of something new. That perhaps you didn’t know it at the time, but looking back you’re like that one decision, that one choice, that one step lead you to where you are now?

That’s what this story is about. The story does start at the beginning with a tragedy in Hassan Haji's youth that changed everything, but that's not where it really starts. It really starts when Hassan makes the choice to walk those 100 feet and start something new.

It’s the tragedy that takes his family first to England, then to France where they decide to make a new home. Once in France they move to a small town across the street from a classic French restaurant run by one Madame Mallory. She discovers that Hassan has a natural ability when it comes to cooking. Learning under the scrutiny of  Madame Mallory will he have what it takes to make it in Paris as a chef? You will need to read the book to find out!

There is a scene in the book where Hassan is having tea with Madame Mallory and he talks about the pistachio madeline’s they are enjoying with said tea. Having only used my madeline tin twice I thought it was about time I dragged it out to use again! Instead of just pistachio madeline’s I added cardamon as well to represent the different cultures that are brought together in this book. I also dipped mine in some melted white chocolate and chopped pistachio nuts!

They turned out good, the perfect balance of salty and sweet. If you’d like to try making these for yourself to eat with a cup of tea (or coffee) while reading this amazing book here’s how I made them!

Pistachio & Cardamom Madeleines

1 large egg
60g caster sugar
60g plain flour, sifted
40g pistachios, ground to a powder
60g butter, melted
3-4 cardamom pods, spilt open and seeds ground up
75g white chocolate, melted
40g pistachios, roughly chopped

Grease a plastic pipping bag with butter, leave to the side. Beat the egg and sugar together with the whisk attachment in a free standing mixer or a hand mixer until it’s tripled and has reached ribbon stage, the batter dripping from the whisk should remain on the surface for a minimum of 3 seconds. Gently fold in the flour and ground pistachios until just combined before adding the cooled melted butter. Again gently fold it in being careful not to knock any of the air out! Place the batter into your prepared piping bag and leave in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours, but ideally 4 hours.
When you are ready to bake heat the oven to 210C. Grease the madeline tin with warm butter and sprinkle with flour, knock off any extra flour (over the sink) and pipe the madeline batter into each mould. Bake in the heated oven for 7-9 minutes. They should spring back when pressed gently with your thumb. These you do not want sitting around in the tin! Wearing oven mitts give it a sharp rap on the counter to release the madeleines. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Once cool to the touch dip in the melted white chocolate and then dip in the chopped pistachios. Enjoy!

notes: This post is part of my #storybookbakes series. 4,417 miles is approximately the distance between The United States and The United Kingdom. I borrowed The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais by a friend before obtaining my own copy. All opinions are my own please see my contact/policy page above for more information. Recipe is adapted from John Whaite’s Pistachio and Cardamom Madeline’s found here. The recipe is missing the amount of butter so I made an educated guess and it as far as I am concerned turned out okay! I am entering these madeline’s into this month’s Treat Petite hosted by Cakeyboi & The Baking Explorer. These madeleines are also being entered into the Perfecting Patisserie blogging challenge hosted by The Baking Queen!

Do you have a favorite Blogger?

Asking me to choose my favorite blogger is like asking me to choose a favorite between my daughters or between my sisters! I don’t have a favorite I love them the same just for different reasons! That goes for my children, sisters, and bloggers!

As you may have guessed I have been asked to write about my favorite blogger for a competition hosted by Curry’s.

The problem is I have a lot of "favorite" blogs, they all offer something different and I have really struggled to narrow it down to one. However the one has been decided and it is Cakeyboi written by Stuart Vettese.

Stuart offers not only inventive and tasty treats but clever cartoons featuring Cakeyboi, whom he has named his blog after. 

I don’t remember how I came across Cakeyboi, I just remember loving Stuart’s Cakeyboi cartoons. So, simple but entertaining. Here are a couple of my favorites! 

His cartoons may have what drew me to his blog to start with, but I continue to be a reader because of his sweet treats. I love how he takes simple traditional makes and/or bakes and gives the flavors an interesting twist! 

To learn more about Stuart and Cakeyboi visit his site, I know you won’t be disappointed!

To learn more about this competition visit the Curry’s site.

As I mentioned Cakeyboi is one of many blogs I read and here are some other blogs I love and read regularly!

1. raspberri cupcakes - Steph is from Sydney and creates some of the most beautiful food I have ever seen!
2. Sprinklebakes - Heather from America has taught me to think outside of the box!
3. Brave Tart - Stella from America has been great for any technical baking problems I encounter! 
4. The Caked Crusader - Her identity is unknown, but with witty writing and classic desserts I am always drawn to her site! 
5. The Londoner - Rosie is from London, she writes a lifestyle blog that covers everything from food to fashion. I read with good-hearted envy of all her adventures and I wish I could have her wardrobe!

notes: This post was written for the Curry's competition: Tell us about your favorite blogger with a chance to win a desktop PC (link above). All pictures are from Cakeyboi with permission from Stuart Vettese and all opinions are my own for further information visit my contact/policy page!